For Eliška,

her sons Kryštůfek and Štěpánek and her husband Petr

Eliška’s story

Eliška (32 yrs) accomplished computer graphics and she successfully worked as a promotional graphic designer until she went on maternity leave. She loved her job. She was also fond of sports – she enjoyed cycling, riding a scooter, in-line skating and snowboarding.

In 2015 she got married and a year later she gave birth to her first son Kryštof. Eliška has been a great mother as well as a great wife. Kryštof was a happy child and Eliška was a happy mum. Eliška, her husband Petr and their son Kryštof were looking forward to another baby boy. (In the picture there is Eliška in the seventh month of pregnancy and her boys). They had many plans for their happy future. They were going to apply for a mortgage and build a house.

The second son, Štěpán, was born on 19 March in 2019 at 5:30 AM. Everything went fine and Eliška with her son went home the same day in the afternoon. However, little Štěpán spent only a little time with his mother, not even a whole day.
Eliška enjoyed the time with her boys only for several hours. The photo is taken from her mobile phone – she took it a few hours before she fell into a deep coma.

Eliška had a 5 cm big tumor (meningioma) in her head, nobody knew about. Because of the childbirth, the tension caused tumor bleeding and brain swelling. In the night Eliška fell into a deep coma. After midnight she was taken to the hospital in Liberec where she underwent urgent surgery. The tumor was removed but the brain edema caused major damage.

For several weeks, she was in bad condition, unconscious, septic, and her brain had high epileptic activity.

She is conscious now, her intelligence was not affected, she can read and she can write a short message with her finger on an alphabetic table.

However, she cannot move, has no mimic, she cannot open her mouth and she is not able to eat and talk or smile at her family. She must be nourished by a tube directly to her stomach. She can breathe by tracheostomy. Both tubes help her but also cause her a big discomfort.

There have been several improvements. Her left side is able to move a little bit and allows her to communicate - at least to answer yes/no questions. The right side was motionless for a long time, but slowly it has started to cooperate.

Apparently, it is necessary to ensure an intensive rehabilitation for her to be able to continue improvements.

Currently, the family is worried about her mental condition – it seems that only now she has fully become aware of how serious her condition is. She cannot be with her children who mean the world for her.

Eliška cannot see the first smile of little Štěpán. She cannot hear him jabber. Kryštof misses his mummy a lot, all of a sudden she disappeared from his life…

She is in the hospital in Liberec these days, she gets a hyperbaric treatment and her doctors and nurses do their best. However, there is no possibility in our state health service to ensure intensive rehabilitation for such a patient in this serious condition. Her family hopes in finding a private facility that could help when Eliška’s condition gets better. Also, special aids will be necessary.

All the treatment will be very expensive. Eliška is receiving sick pay, her husband is on maternity leave and takes care of their sons. Their parents are not able to help either. All three boys, Petr and his sons, live with Petr´s parents now and this situation is getting uncomfortable for all of them. They should be helped to solve this unpleasant situation, too.